Comments on: Reflections Upon a Week in England

By: the buckaroo

the buckaroo — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:06:12 +0000

Thanks for clearing up the food issue. Had the occasion to visit Salisbury after stopping off at Stonehenge. After parking the car just outside the old city gates, I spied a window menu to a second story walk up.

Upon returning from the usual church site seeing stuff, we decided to try the restaurant. Husband & wife team (both English), five tables & a kitchen offering that would shame Maxim’s in quality & imagination.

Fresh scampi, venison, lobster, range hens, duck…nothing but elbows & mouths after being served…& many yummy sounds. The Onion soup was definitive. I’ve not had food the equal since at five times the price. You never know when you’ll stumble upon nirvana.

Traveling with the youngsters is priceless at our age…experience speaks well. My boy just turned 10…what were we thinking?

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:47:04 +0000

Jared, as always, found your blog post insightful and I particularly nodded along re: food and air travel.

I’ve long suspected that the class warfare in air travel exist in England because of the availability and immense usability of the train system. There are many more preferable and more convenient forms of transit available to Europeans than here in the US. So, instead of complaining with their mouths for better treatment at the airports, most people simply vote with their feet and choose to use the Eurostar or drive in the Chunnel themselves.

It’s gotten so bad that I basically refuse to fly to LHR unless it’s “upper class”.

By: PeonInChief

PeonInChief — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:11:08 +0000

And what’s most irritating is that steerage pays the freight. Someone should calculate how much the flight per person would cost if the airlines only had first-class passengers.

By: PeonInChief

PeonInChief — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:06:00 +0000

Omigod, I thought the “food theory of imperialism” was my original invention. I should have known that anyone who’d ever heard of boiled mutton would think this one up.

By: Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:33:38 +0000

Yep–great point: the VAT’s in the price over there and it’s certainly a factor in the difference between prices here and there.

By: John Goldin

John Goldin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:15:09 +0000

I had the same reaction to the relative cost of everyday items in UK and US. I was hoping you would shed some light on how the VAT affects that. I can simply calculate the effect of state sales tax or hotel room tax. But I don’t think my intuitions are very good about how much of a restaurant meal or a room at a guest house is pushed up by VAT. The rate is up to 20%. Wikipedia seems to tell me that the net effect of a 20% VAT on the end price should be the same as a 20% sales tax. Is that correct?

By: Michael Dahl

Michael Dahl — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:24:01 +0000

Gavin Kelly provides an incredibly rich argument regarding the “US Disease.” Thanks for adding him to my RSS feed.

By: Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:55:36 +0000

That site looks extremely useful–thnx from all my extremities.

By: Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 07:52:36 +0000

Totally understand the whole cattle car aspect of flying now. I used to do Seattle to Hyderabad, India and back about 4 round trips per year plus a lot of other destinations in between. This helped a lot! http://www.seatguru.com/
Shhhhhh Don’t tell anyone.